Black and grey tattoo of a rabbit in a waistcoat and collar, framed by an ornate scrolled oval with beaded edges, on the side of the torso.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rabbit in an ornate oval frame

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A rabbit in a jacket and bow tie sits within an ornate oval frame with scrollwork, beading and a small rosette at the top. The linework is fine and detailed, with soft grey shading on the fur and fabric. The tattoo fills most of the frame, with the rabbit centred and the skin of the torso visible around it.

Ribs Rabbit Frame Scrollwork Rosette Bow tie Jacket

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dad had the frame wrapped in an old bargee's blanket the whole length of the Oxford Canal, and he would not let me touch the glass. Inside it sat Mr Hobday, a rabbit no bigger than a pocket watch, painted on card and dressed in a brown tailcoat, a plum-coloured bow tie and an expression of polite doubt about the weather. Grandad had bought the lot at a clearance sale in Thrupp for two pounds and a bag of coal, and hung it above the stove on the Ellie Jane until the varnish turned the colour of stewed tea.

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Dad said it belonged to the lock-keeper's family at Shipton, the Pruetts, and that a rabbit that fine should not be sold off like an old kettle. So on a grey Saturday we moored below the lock and walked up a lane lined with nettles to a cottage with a green door. A woman in an apron answered and looked at the frame for a long time before she said the rabbit had never been a pet at all. It was a joke her great-aunt used to tell, that the house would keep one sensible gentleman in a frame so there was always someone to ask before anyone did anything daft.

She reached up and pressed the rosette at the top of the frame. It gave with a soft click, and a folded slip of paper dropped into Dad's palm, brittle as a biscuit. The writing was in pencil and said only: Keep the water moving, Hobday will see you right.

Dad read it twice, slid it back behind the rosette and pressed it shut with his thumb. We carried the frame down the lane without a word, and that evening Hobday went back above the stove, looking, for the first time, as if he knew the way home.